I'm a Scottish technology entrepreneur, current CEO of Teamly. After spending over a year in Silicon Valley I moved to Downtown Las Vegas following closing investment from Tony Hsieh's VegasTechFund. I started my first business aged 20 while at University, which years later grew into an award-winning B2B telecoms company with an amazing team and lots of satisfied customers.
My current venture, Teamly, builds online software that helps businesses manage talent, their most important asset! I'm passionate about personal effectiveness, company culture, building brands, long-lasting businesses and so visited Zappos in 2009 to learn more from them. I enjoy helping others and as well as advising a number of other tech companies I've been involved with two non-profits to encourage and support entrepreneurs.
I love world travel but I also try to spend time every year on the beautiful Isle of Arran, off the west coast of Scotland.
Follow me on Google+

The seven deadly sins: wrath, avarice, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony. I’ve heard investors like Reid Hoffman, Tim Chang and Dave McClure all say that they look for some of these elements in a startup’s product as a prerequisite to investing. Secret - the anonymous social app - may be the first app that hits all of these. If you will, it’s the Heinz ketchup of the social web.

Secret says it’s a place where you can be yourself: “Secret is a space to openly share what you’re thinking and feeling with your friends. Speak freely, share anything.”

I know what you’re thinking. It sounds terrible. “Surely there’s plenty of places online for people to do that!” Look at any forum or comments on youtube and there’s no shortage of trolling going on. But what’s really interesting is that when everyone is anonymous you focus on the message itself. People make assumptions on Secret all the time about whether the OP (original poster) is male, female, gay, straight, black, white, etc, but frequently these assumptions turn out to be wrong as the conversation develops in the comments. Of course there are trolls on Secret too, but as one wit put it, “Secret: where the anonymous trolls are your FRIENDS”.

Clearly some Secret’s are lies, or exaggerated, or deliberately outrageous, but I find there’s always something of interest, along with some wicked humour.

The main reason people are flocking to it seems to be the ability for you to say whatever you want. Throughout life we self-censor, we say we’re fine when we’re not, and we project an image of ourselves on social media that’s more the person we want to be than the person we really are. In the entrepreneurial world, CEOs and founders frequently complain of being alone. They always have to put on a brave face and I’ve seen great discussions on Secret where a founder has shared that there’s almost no cash left in the bank and that they would soon have no choice but to lay off all the employees and shut down their company. The person described themselves as terrified. For obvious reasons you couldn’t share that on TwitterTwitter or Facebook. There’s been amazing discussions on depression and suicide too.

I’ve been saving some of the best insights I’ve seen on Secret about Secret and I’ve posted them below:

Secret launched in February, and closed a $10 million series A a month later. Since then it’s expanded from just the U.S. App Store, to be available globally and on Android as well. I’ve seen the volume of secrets being shared and comments dramatically increasing week by week. A lot of people are saying how Twitter now seems boring by comparison, and that their social media time is now tipping towards Secret. Will it last? I have no idea, but I’m fascinated to see how this plays out.

Final thought… as it’s grown there has been a rise I think in negativity and trolling. Lots of people say “This is my last Secret, I’m about to uninstall”. But I’ve also seen a lot of “I’m back” postings too. If you love Secret at it’s best where people are supportive helping people talk through their fears and worries – but can’t take the negative stuff – check out Daily Muses instead. It’s a pseudo-anonymous app where fun and positivity is the norm, but without any of the snark of Secret.

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.